I agree with Thearchivebooks : free is great, bidding on unverified lots is risky, and gambling on the unknown is sometimes fun, unless it costs you. I usually inspect in person, and if a gayloard is covered with plastic conveyor chain, or sock filters, or apparent garbage, which no one is bidding on, I I cannot rock the gaylord with my 250 lb + bulk, I figure there is sufficient metal to risk a bid at scrap iron prices, which in my area is about 5 cents per pound. Occasionally that pays off handsomely, other times, just recover my expense. But, as rdw1121 mentions, usually it is several pallets. Having been playing the auction game, I usually can spot a small item, a brass valve new/unused that will eventually sell for a hundred bucks or so, or sometimes a couple hundred pounds of obsolete brass plumbing mixed in with plastic and iron and miscellaneous. When there are knowledgeable buyers, who have a need for the merchandise, sometimes the bid I put in for material at scrap value of $20 bucks sells for over a thousand at the auction, at which time I am happy I did not deprive someone who needed or could use the material.. And, sometimes there are a few control boards mixed in with machinery parts and scrap. I ready my boards for Boardsort, and when I get in the neighborhood of 500 pounds of peripheral or better boards, I load up, add in the low grade and mid grade boards, power supplies, etc, which will pay the gas for the 605 mile one way trip to Cleveland, deliver my load, then stop off at a couple of rock hunting locations, and return home with several hundred pounds of Kentucky Geodes, fossil plates, and rock specimens. Maybe my next delivery in a couple weeks, I can stop off at Flint Ridge and collect Ohio Flint.
|